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7 Reasons Why Russia Isn't Egypt

Virtually every time an autocratic government is overthrown by a popular uprising people openly start speculating “so when is the same thing going to happen in Russia?” John McCain has been one of the most persistent and vocal in doing so, but every time the “dictators club” loses a member a lot of people in Washington look at the Kremlin and can’t help but think “NextNext!”

Whether this should happen is an entirely different matter (I personally don’t think it makes a lot of sense to extrapolate unrest from one country and project it onto another totally different one) but just in case anyone is looking at what’s going on in Cairo and thinking the same thing is going to happen in Moscow I threw together a few charts showing why it’s exceedingly unlikely. Egypt’s unrest is being driven by powerful economic and demographic forces, forces that are almost totally lacking in Russia.

Russia’s birth rate has rebounded after the plunge it took during the 1990′s, but Egypt’s birth rate has increased even more from a vastly higher base. Egypt’s population is growing at one of the most rapid rates in the world, something which puts enormous pressure on the country’s economic and political institutions. Russia’s population, in contrast, is essentially stable.

2) Egypt has a big problem with extreme poverty, which Russia has largely eliminatd

Compared to developed Western countries Russia still has a lot of work to do in terms of reducing poverty. Russia has succeded, though, in virtually eliminating extreme material deprivation. Almost a fifth of the Egyptian population experiences a level of poverty that put their very survival at risk

3) Egypt’s population is much younger than Russia’s

It’s not exactly a secret that revolution is a young man’s game. Middle aged people, for better or worse, just aren’t very likely to go out and riot on the streets. If you look at the countries that have experienced revolutions over the past several years the leading role is almost always played by people in their late teens or early to mid 20′s. Due both to long-term trends and the demographic shock of the 1990′s, Russia has a relatively small proportion of youths and a relatively large proportion of the middle-aged and elderly.

4) Compared to Russians very few Egyptians work

Despite its large population Egypt has a very small proportion of its citizens engaged in economically productive activity. There are many ways to demonstrate this fact, but the most dramatic is to compare female labor force participation rates. Russia’s rate, at around 70%, is basically at or above the level you see in developed countries. Egypt’s, at around 25%, is extraordinarily low. To put it a bit crudely,the great majority of Russians get up every morning and have to go to work while an enormous number of Egyptians don’t.

5) Russian incomes have been growing rapidly while Egyptian incomes have been stagnant for several years

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